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Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court yesterday decided that a government organisation's renewal of its proprietary software licences without a public tender does not harm the business interests of open source software service providers.

«...The existing copyright system makes a few stars very rich, supports a small fraction of artists adequately, and is an abject failure for the rest. However, it is great for supporting the big business of the copyright industry—and nowadays they are extending it to forbid sharing. It is a system that attacks our freedom so it can waste our money.

"UNESCO, together with ITU, UNCTAD and UNDP, is organizing an open consultation for the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2010. All individuals, networks and organizations interested in this issue are invited to participate in the three-fold process, consisting of an online discussion, a questionnaire and a review meeting..."

"The Federal Department of Justice and Police recently proposed to introduce legislation illegalizing so-called «hacker tools» in Switzerland as well [...] The current proposal can thus be considered as totally inappropriate, and will need a complete makeover.

Myriam Schweingruber is a devoted Free Software advocate with a flair for convincing people. Having worked as a translator, a school teacher and a pharmacist, Myriam is quite experienced in the art of communication, and gives a clear impression of trustworthiness.

"The FCC has finally published its order (adopted on August 1) directing Comcast to stop blocking BitTorrent traffic. The 34-page ruling makes for surprisingly enjoyable reading, at least as FCC publications go. The order follows the basic outline that was explained by Chairman Martin in his statement on August 1, 2008. But there are some interesting additional tidbits: ..."

"San Francisco - Hours before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to take action against Comcast for violating the FCC's net neutrality principles, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is releasing "Switzerland," a software tool for customers to test the integrity of their Internet communications..." -- (Switzerland is free software licensed under the GPL)

"ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a proposed enforcement treaty between United States, the European Community, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and Mexico, with Canada set to join any day now..."

Official objections regarding the way matters were handled in Switzerland at the recent vote over whether or not to approve MS-OOXML as an ISO standard have just been filed [PDF] by Free Software Foundation Europe.